August 2017

An elderly man waits for medicine at a hospital counter in Thailand. Photo: Trinn Suwannapha/World Bank

Thailand recently announced that it will put into action a national social assistance program for poor families. Such a program can help reduce poverty significantly. It would also move Thailand into the growing ranks of middle-income countries, such as China, Malaysia, Brazil, Turkey and the Philippines, that provide the poor with a ‘safety net’.

The pace of economic development throughout developing East Asia has been unprecedented. Despite the effect of the 1997-98 financial crisis, poverty rates in the region have been consistently declining.
Agriculture played a key role by driving growth in the early stages of industrialization. It also contributed to reducing rural poverty by including smallholders into modern food markets and creating jobs in agriculture. Nonetheless, poverty in developing East Asia is still overwhelmingly rural, reflecting a mismatch between agriculture’s shares of GDP and employment.

Agriculture’s weight in growth and poverty.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on WDI data.

As incomes rise and countries urbanize, the composition of domestic food expenditure is shifting from staples to meat, horticulture and processed foods. Thus, while today’s East Asian developing economies transform, the nature of their agricultural sectors is also changing.

Chair and members of the Education User Committee announce the teachers’ performance scores in a meeting attended by the representatives from the Ministry of Education and Culture, the sub-district education department, the village government staff, the school staff, and community members.

Dato’ Seri Dr. Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, Deputy Prime Minister of Malaysia, launching the Virtual Teller Machine (VTM) at the National Savings Bank. Digital technologies such as the VTM are now changing the way microfinance works. Photo: The Star